Socialist Realism in Soviet Literature. Socialist realism in literature

1. Prerequisites. If in the field of natural science the cultural revolution boiled down mainly to the "revision" of the scientific picture of the world "in the light of the ideas of dialectical materialism", then in the field of humanities the program of party leadership of artistic creativity and the creation of a new communist art came to the fore.

The aesthetic equivalent of this art was the theory of socialist realism.

Its premises were formulated by the classics of Marxism. For example, Engels, discussing the purpose of a "tendentious" or "socialist" novel, noted that a proletarian writer achieves his goal when, by truthfully portraying actual relations, he breaks the prevailing conventional illusions about the nature of these relations, and shatters the optimism of the bourgeois world. , raises doubts about the immutability of the foundations of the existing ... "At the same time, it was not at all required" to present the reader in a finished form with the future historical resolution of the social conflicts depicted by him. " Such attempts appeared to Engels as a deviation into utopia, which was resolutely rejected by the "scientific theory" of Marxism.

Lenin more emphasized the organizational aspect: "Literature must be party literature." This meant that it "cannot be an individual matter at all, independent of the common proletarian cause." “Down with non-party writers! Lenin declared categorically. - Down with the writers of supermen! Literature must become a part of the general proletarian cause, the "wheel and cog" of a single, great Social Democratic mechanism set in motion by the entire conscious vanguard of the entire working class. Literary work should become an integral part of organized, planned, united Social Democratic Party work. " Literature was assigned the role of "propagandist and agitator", embodying in artistic images the tasks and ideals of the class struggle of the proletariat.

2. The theory of socialist realism. The aesthetic platform of socialist realism was developed by A. M. Gorky (1868-1936), the main "petrel" of the revolution.

According to this platform, the worldview of a proletarian writer should be permeated with the pathos of a militant anti-bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie has many faces, but its essence lies in the thirst for "satiety," material well-being, on which the entire bourgeois culture is based. The bourgeois passion for the “senseless accumulation of things,” for personal property, is instilled by the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Hence the duality of his consciousness: emotionally, the proletariat gravitates towards the past, intellectually - towards the future.

Consequently, the proletarian writer must, on the one hand, persistently pursue "a line of critical attitude to the past," and, on the other, "develop the ability to look at it from the height of the present achievements, from the height of the great goals of the future." In Gorky's opinion, this will give socialist literature a new tone, help it develop new forms, "a new direction - socialist realism, which - of course - can only be created on the facts of socialist experience."

Thus, the method of socialist realism consisted in the decomposition of everyday reality into "old" and "new", that is, in fact, bourgeois and communist, and in showing the carriers of this new in real life. It is they who must become the positive heroes of Soviet literature. At the same time, Gorky admitted the possibility of "conjecturing," exaggerating the elements of the new in reality, considering this as an anticipatory reflection of the communist ideal.

Accordingly, the writer spoke out categorically against criticism of the socialist system. Those who criticize, in his opinion, only "litter the bright working day with rubbish of critical words. They suppress the will and creative energy of the people. After reading the manuscript of A. P. Platonov's novel" Chevengur " work, I do not think that it will be printed, published. This will be hindered by your anarchic frame of mind, apparently inherent in the nature of your "spirit".

Whether you like it or not, you have given the coverage of reality a lyric-satirical character, this, of course, is unacceptable for our censorship. For all the tenderness of your attitude towards people, they are colored ironically, they appear before the reader not so much as revolutionaries as "eccentrics" and "crazy" ... I will add: among modern editors, I do not see anyone who could evaluate your novel by its merits ... This is all I can tell you, and I am very sorry that I cannot say anything else. " And these are the words of a man whose influence was worth the influence of all Soviet editors put together!

For the sake of glorifying "socialist achievements" Gorky allowed the creation of a legend about Lenin, exalted the personality of Stalin.

3. The novel "Mother". Articles and speeches of Gorky 20-30s. summed up his own artistic experience, the peak of which was the novel "Mother" (1906). Lenin called it a "great work of art" that helped to strengthen the labor movement in Russia. This assessment was the reason for the party canonization of Gorky's novel.

The plot of the novel is the awakening of the revolutionary consciousness in the proletariat, suppressed by want and lack of rights.

Here is a familiar and bleak picture of life in the suburb. Every morning, with a lingering factory whistle, "from small gray houses, sullen people ran out into the street like frightened cockroaches, who had not had time to refresh their muscles with sleep." They were workers from a nearby factory. The non-stop "hard labor" was diversified in the evenings by drunken, bloody fights, which often ended in grievous injuries, even murders.

There was neither kindness nor compassion in people. The bourgeois world has drained out of them the sense of human dignity and self-respect drop by drop. “In people's relationships,” Gorky made the situation even darker, “there was most of all a feeling of awaiting anger, it was as old as the incurable fatigue of the muscles. People were born with this illness of the soul, inheriting it from their fathers, and it accompanied them with a black shadow. to the grave, prompting in the course of life to a number of actions disgusting in their aimless cruelty. "

And people are so accustomed to this constant pressure of life that they did not expect any changes for the better, moreover, "they considered all changes to be capable only of increasing oppression."

This was how Gorky imagined the "poisonous, convict abomination" of the capitalist world. He did not care at all how the picture he depicted corresponded to real life. He drew his understanding of the latter from Marxist literature, from Lenin's assessments of Russian reality. And this meant only one thing: the position of the working people under capitalism is hopeless, and it cannot be changed without revolution. Gorky wanted to show one of the possible ways of awakening the social "bottom", gaining revolutionary consciousness.

The images of the young worker Pavel Vlasov and his mother Pelageya Nilovna, created by him, served the solution of this task.

Pavel Vlasov could completely repeat the path of his father, in which, as it were, the tragedy of the position of the Russian proletariat was personified. But his meeting with "forbidden people" (Gorky remembered Lenin's words that socialism was being introduced to the masses "from the outside"!) Opened up a life perspective for him, led him to the path of the "liberation" struggle. He creates an underground revolutionary circle in the suburb, rallies the most energetic workers around him, and they develop political education.

Taking advantage of the story of the "swamp penny", Pavel Vlasov openly made a pathetic speech, urging the workers to unite, to feel like "comrades, a family of friends, tightly bound by one desire - the desire to fight for our rights."

From that moment on, Pelageya Nilovna took the son's work with all her heart. After the arrest of Pavel and his comrades at the May Day demonstration, she picks up a red flag dropped by someone and with fiery words addresses the frightened crowd: "Listen, for Christ's sake! All of you are relatives ... all of you are cordial ... look without fear, - what happened? Children in the world, our blood, are walking for the truth ... for everyone! For all of you, for your babies, they have doomed themselves to the path of the cross ... they are looking for bright days. They want another life in truth, in justice .. . they want good for everyone! "

Nilovna's speech reflects the former way of her life - a downtrodden, religious woman. She believes in Christ and the need for suffering for the sake of "Christ's Resurrection" - a bright future: "Our Lord Jesus Christ would not exist if people had not died for his glory ..." Nilovna is not yet a Bolshevik, but she is already a Christian socialist. By the time Gorky wrote his novel Mother, the movement of Christian socialism in Russia was in full force, and it was supported by the Bolsheviks.

But Pavel Vlasov is an indisputable Bolshevik. From beginning to end, his consciousness is permeated with the slogans and appeals of the Leninist party. This is fully revealed at the trial, where two irreconcilable camps come face to face. The image of the court is based on the principle of multidimensional contrast. Everything that relates to the old world is given in depressingly gloomy tones. This is a sick world in all respects.

"All the judges seemed to their mothers to be unhealthy people. Painful fatigue manifested itself in their postures and voices, it lay on their faces - painful fatigue and annoying, gray boredom." In some ways they are similar to the workers' suburbs before their awakening to a new life, and it is not surprising, because both are the product of the same "dead" and "indifferent" bourgeois society.

The depiction of revolutionary workers is of a completely different character. Their mere presence at the court makes the hall more spacious and brighter; one can feel that they are not criminals here, but prisoners, and the truth is on their side. This is what Paul demonstrates when the judge gives him the floor. "A party man," he declares, "I only recognize the court of my party and I will speak not in my own defense, but - at the request of my comrades, who also refused to defend themselves, - I will try to explain to you what you did not understand."

And the judges did not understand that they were not just "rebels against the tsar", but "enemies of private property", enemies of a society that "considers a person only as an instrument of its enrichment." "We want," Pavel declares with phrases from socialist leaflets, "now to have so much freedom that it will give us the opportunity to conquer all power over time. Our slogans are simple - down with private property, all means of production for the people, all power for the people, labor - obligatory for everyone. You see - we are not rebels! " Paul's words "in orderly rows" engraved in the memory of those present, filling them with strength and faith in a bright future.

Gorky's novel is inherently hagiographic; for a writer, partisanship is the same category of sanctity that belonged to hagiographic literature. Party membership was assessed by him as a kind of communion with the highest ideological sacraments, ideological shrines: the image of a person without party membership is the image of the enemy. We can say that for Gorky, partisanship is a kind of symbolic differentiation of polar cultural categories: "ours" and "aliens." It ensures the unity of ideology, endowing it with the features of a new religion, a new Bolshevik revelation.

Thus, a kind of hagiography of Soviet literature was accomplished, which Gorky himself imagined as a fusion of romanticism with realism. It was no coincidence that he urged to learn the art of writing from his medieval compatriot from Nizhny Novgorod - Avvakum Petrov.

4. Literature of socialist realism. The novel "Mother" caused an endless stream of "party books" dedicated to the sacralization of "Soviet everyday life". Particularly noteworthy are the works of D. A. Furmanov ("Chapaev", 1923), A. S. Serafimovich ("Iron Stream", 1924), M. A. Sholokhov ("Quiet Don", 1928-1940; "Virgin Soil Upturned" , 1932-1960), N. A. Ostrovsky ("How the Steel Was Tempered", 1932-1934), F. I. Panferov ("Bars", 1928-1937), A. N. Tolstoy ("Walking through the Torments", 1922-1941), etc.

Perhaps the largest, perhaps even larger than Gorky himself, the apologist of the Soviet era was V.V. Mayakovsky (1893-1930).

Glorifying Lenin and the party in every way, he himself frankly admitted:

I wouldn't be a poet, if
I sang not that -
in the five-pointed stars the sky of the immeasurable vault of the RCP.

The literature of socialist realism was tightly fenced off from reality by a wall of party myth-making. She could exist only under "high patronage": she had little of her own strength. Like hagiography with the church, it merged with the party, sharing the ups and downs of communist ideology.

5. Cinema. Along with literature, the Party considered cinema the "most important of the arts". The importance of cinema especially increased after it became sound in 1931. One after another, film adaptations of Gorky's works appear: Mother (1934), Gorky's Childhood (1938), In People (1939), My Universities (1940), created by director M. Donskoy. He also owned films dedicated to Lenin's mother - "Mother's Heart" (1966) and "Loyalty to Mother" (1967), which reflected the influence of Gorky's stencil.

Pictures on historical and revolutionary themes come out in a wide stream: the trilogy about Maxim directed by GM Kozintsev and L. Z. Trauberg - "Youth of Maxim" (1935), "Return of Maxim" (1937), "Vyborg Side" (1939); “We are from Kronstadt” (directed by E. L. Dzigan, 1936), “Deputy of the Baltic” (directed by A. G. Zarkhi and I. E. Kheifits, 1937), “Shchors” (directed by A. P. Dovzhenko, 1939) , "Yakov Sverdlov" (directed by S. I. Yutkevich, 1940) and others.

An exemplary film of this series was recognized as "Chapaev" (1934), filmed by directors G. N. and S. D. Vasiliev based on Furman's novel.

Films in which the image of the "leader of the proletariat" was embodied did not leave the screens: "Lenin in October" (1937) and "Lenin in 1918" (1939) directed by MI Romm, "The man with a gun" (1938) directed by S. I. Yutkevich.

6. General secretary and artist. Soviet cinema has always been a product of the official order. This was considered the norm and was strongly supported by both the "top" and the "bottom".

Even such an outstanding master of cinematography as S.M. Eisenstein (1898-1948) recognized the films that he made on the "instructions of the government" as "the most successful" in his work, namely, "Battleship Potemkin" (1925), "October "(1927) and" Alexander Nevsky "(1938).

On a government order, he also directed the film Ivan the Terrible. The first series of the film was released in 1945 and was awarded the Stalin Prize. Soon the director completed the editing of the second episode, and it was immediately shown in the Kremlin. Stalin was disappointed with the film: he did not like the fact that Ivan the Terrible was shown as some kind of "neurasthenic", repenting and worried about his atrocities.

For Eisenstein, such a reaction of the secretary general was quite expected: he knew that Stalin followed the example of Ivan the Terrible in everything. And Eisenstein himself saturated his previous films with scenes of cruelty, conditioning them to "select the subject matter, methodology and credo" of his directorial work. It seemed to him quite normal that in his films “crowds of people were shot, children were crushed on the Odessa stairs and thrown from the roof (" Strike "), they were allowed to be killed by their own parents (" Bezhin Meadow "), thrown into blazing fires (" Alexander Nevsky ") etc.". When he began work on Ivan the Terrible, he first of all wanted to recreate the "cruel age" of the Moscow Tsar, who, according to the director, for a long time remained the "ruler" of his soul and "beloved hero."

So the sympathies of the secretary general and the artist completely coincided, and Stalin had the right to count on the appropriate completion of the film. But it turned out differently, and this could only be perceived as an expression of doubt about the expediency of the "bloody" policy. Probably, something similar was really experienced by an ideologized director tired of eternal pleasing to the authorities. Stalin never forgave this: Eisenstein was saved only by a premature death.

The second episode of "Ivan the Terrible" was banned and saw the light only after Stalin's death, in 1958, when the political climate in the country tended to "thaw" and a ferment of intellectual dissidence began.

7. "Red wheel" of socialist realism. However, nothing changed the essence of socialist realism. It was, and still is, a method of art designed to capture the "cruelty of the oppressors" and "the madness of the brave." His slogans were communist ideology and partisanship. Any deviation from them was considered capable of "damaging the creativity of even gifted people."

One of the last resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU on literature and art (1981) strictly warned: “Our critics, literary magazines, creative unions and, first of all, their party organizations should be able to correct those who are brought in one direction or another. And, of course, to act actively, on principle in those cases when works that discredit our Soviet reality appear. Here we must be irreconcilable. The party was not and cannot be indifferent to the ideological orientation of art. "

And how many of them, genuine talents, innovators of literary affairs, fell under the "red wheel" of Bolshevism - B. L. Pasternak, V. P. Nekrasov, I. A. Brodsky, A. I. Solzhenitsyn, D. L. Andreev, V. T. Shalamov and many others. dr.

|
socialist realism, socialist realism posters
Socialist realism(socialist realism) is the ideological method of artistic creativity used in the art of the Soviet Union, and then in other socialist countries, introduced into artistic creativity by means of state policy, including censorship, and responding to the solution of the tasks of building socialism.

It was approved in 1932 by party organs in literature and art.

In parallel, unofficial art existed.

* artistic depiction of reality "exactly, in accordance with a specific historical revolutionary development."

• harmonization of artistic creativity with the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, active involvement of workers in the construction of socialism, confirmation of the leading role of the Communist Party.

• 1 History of origin and development
• 2 Feature
  • 2.1 Definition in terms of official ideology
  • 2.2 Principles of Socialist Realism
  • 2.3 literature
• 3 Criticism
• 4 Representatives of socialist realism
  • 4.1 Literature
  • 4.2 Painting and graphics
  • 4.3 Sculpture
• 5 See also
• 6 Bibliography
• 7 Notes
• 8 References

History of origin and development

Lunacharsky was the first writer to lay his ideological foundation. Back in 1906, he introduced into everyday life such a concept as "proletarian realism." By the twenties, in relation to this concept, he began to use the term "new social realism", and in the early thirties he devoted articles that were published in Izvestia.

Term "Socialist realism" first proposed by the chairman of the organizing committee of the USSR Writers' Union I. Gronsky in the "Literaturnaya gazeta" on May 23, 1932. It arose in connection with the need to direct the RAPP and the avant-garde to the artistic development of Soviet culture. The decisive factor in this was the recognition of the role of classical traditions and the understanding of the new qualities of realism. 1932-1933 Gronsky and head. sector of fiction of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) V. Kirpotin intensively promoted this term.

At the 1st All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, Maxim Gorky argued:

“Socialist realism affirms being as an act, as creativity, the purpose of which is the continuous development of the most valuable individual abilities of man for the sake of his victory over the forces of nature, for the sake of his health and longevity, for the sake of great happiness to live on the land that he, in accordance with the continuous growth of his needs, wants treat everything as a wonderful dwelling of humanity united in one family. "

It was required to approve this method as the main state for better control over creative personalities and better propaganda of its policies. the previous period, the twenties, there were Soviet writers who sometimes took aggressive positions in relation to many outstanding writers. For example, the RAPP, an organization of proletarian writers, was actively involved in criticizing non-proletarian writers. The RAPP consisted primarily of aspiring writers. during the creation of modern industry (years of industrialization), Soviet power needed art that would raise the people to "labor exploits". The fine arts of the 1920s also represented a rather variegated picture. several groups emerged from it. The most significant was the group "Association of Artists of the Revolution". They depicted the present day: the life of the Red Army, workers, peasants, revolutionaries and labor leaders. They considered themselves the heirs of the "Itinerants". They went to factories, factories, to the Red Army barracks to directly observe the life of their characters, to “sketch” it. It was they who became the backbone of the "socialist realism" artists. It was much harder for less traditional masters, in particular, members of the OST (Society of Easel Painters), which united young people who graduated from the first Soviet art university.

Gorky in a solemn atmosphere returned from emigration and headed the specially created Union of Writers of the USSR, which included mainly writers and poets of the Soviet orientation.

Characteristic

Definition in terms of official ideology

For the first time, an official definition of socialist realism was given in the Charter of the USSR Writers' Union, adopted at the First Congress of the Soviet Union:

Socialist realism, being the main method of Soviet fiction and literary criticism, requires from the artist a truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic depiction of reality should be combined with the task of ideological alteration and education in the spirit of socialism.

This definition became the starting point for all further interpretations up to the 80s.

It is a deeply vital, scientific and most advanced artistic method that has developed as a result of the successes of socialist construction and the education of Soviet people in the spirit of communism. The principles of socialist realism ... were a further development of Lenin's teaching on the partisanship of literature. " (Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1947)

Lenin expressed the following idea that art should be on the side of the proletariat:

“Art belongs to the people. The deepest springs of art can be found among a wide class of workers ... Art must be based on their feelings, thoughts and demands and must grow with them. "

The principles of socialist realism

• Nationality. This meant both the comprehensibility of literature for the common people, and the use of folk speech turns and proverbs.

• Ideology. Show the peaceful life of the people, the search for ways to a new, better life, heroic deeds in order to achieve a happy life for all people.

• Concreteness. depicting reality to show the process of historical development, which in turn must correspond to the materialistic understanding of history (in the process of changing the conditions of their existence, people also change their consciousness, their attitude to the surrounding reality).

As the definition from the Soviet textbook stated, the method implied the use of the heritage of world realistic art, but not as a simple imitation of great examples, but with a creative approach. “The method of socialist realism predetermines the deep connection of works of art with modern reality, the active participation of art in socialist construction. The tasks of the method of socialist realism require from every artist a true understanding of the meaning of the events taking place in the country, the ability to evaluate the phenomena of social life in their development, in complex dialectical interaction. "

The method included the unity of realism and Soviet romance, combining the heroic and the romantic with the "realistic assertion of the true truth of the surrounding reality." It was argued that in this way the humanism of "critical realism" was complemented by "socialist humanism."

The state gave orders, sent on creative business trips, organized exhibitions - thus stimulating the development of the layer of art it needed.

In literature

The writer, according to the well-known expression of Yu. K. Olesha, is an "engineer of human souls." With his talent, he must influence the reader as a propagandist. He educates the reader in the spirit of loyalty to the Party and supports it in the struggle for the victory of communism. The subjective actions and aspirations of the individual had to correspond to the objective course of history. Lenin wrote: “Literature must become party literature ... Down with non-party writers. Down with the writers of supermen! Literature must become a part of the general proletarian cause, "cogs and wheels" of one single great social democratic mechanism set in motion by the entire conscious vanguard of the entire working class. "

A literary work in the genre of socialist realism should be built "on the idea of ​​the inhumanity of any form of exploitation of man by man, to expose the crimes of capitalism, igniting the minds of readers and viewers with fair anger, to inspire them to revolutionary struggle for socialism."

Maxim Gorky wrote the following about socialist realism:

"It is vital and creative for our writers to take a point of view, from the height of which - and only from its height - all the dirty crimes of capitalism, all the meanness of its bloody intentions are clearly visible and all the greatness of the heroic work of the proletariat-dictator is visible."

He also argued:

"... a writer must have a good knowledge of the history of the past and knowledge of the social phenomena of our time, in which he is called upon to play simultaneously two roles: the role of a midwife and a gravedigger."

Gorky believed that the main task of socialist realism is to educate a socialist, revolutionary view of the world, corresponding to a sense of the world.

Criticism

Andrei Sinyavsky in his essay "What is socialist realism", having analyzed the ideology and history of the development of socialist realism, as well as the features of its typical works in literature, concluded that this style actually has nothing to do with real realism, but is a Soviet version of classicism with admixtures of romanticism. Also in this work, he argued that due to the erroneous orientation of Soviet art workers towards realistic works of the 19th century (especially critical realism), deeply alien to the classicist nature of socialist realism, and therefore due to the unacceptable and curious synthesis of classicism and realism in one work - the creation of outstanding works of art in this style is unthinkable.

Representatives of socialist realism

Literature

• Maksim Gorky
• Vladimir Mayakovsky
• Alexander Tvardovsky
• Veniamin Kaverin
• Anna Zegers
• Vilis Latsis
• Nikolay Ostrovsky
• Alexander Serafimovich
• Fyodor Gladkov
• Konstantin Simonov
• Caesar Solodar
• Mikhail Sholokhov
• Nikolay Nosov
• Alexander Fadeev
• Konstantin Fedin
• Dmitry Furmanov
• Yuriko Miyamoto
• Marietta Shahinyan
• Julia Drunina
• Vsevolod Kochetov

Painting and graphics

• Antipova, Evgeniya Petrovna
• Brodsky, Isaak Izrailevich
• Buchkin, Pyotr Dmitrievich
• Vasiliev, Petr Konstantinovich
• Vladimirsky, Boris Eremeevich
• Gerasimov, Alexander Mikhailovich
• Gerasimov, Sergey Vasilievich
• Gorelov, Gabriel Nikitich
• Deineka, Alexander Alexandrovich
• Konchalovsky, Pyotr Petrovich
• Maevsky, Dmitry Ivanovich
• Ovchinnikov, Vladimir Ivanovich
• Osipov, Sergei Ivanovich
• Pozdneev, Nikolay Matveevich
• Romas, Yakov Dorofeevich
• Rusov, Lev Alexandrovich
• Samokhvalov, Alexander Nikolaevich
• Semenov, Arseny Nikiforovich
• Timkov, Nikolay Efimovich
• Favorsky, Vladimir Andreevich
• Franz, Rudolf Rudolfovich
• Shakhrai, Serafima Vasilievna

Sculpture

• Mukhina, Vera Ignatievna
• Tomsky, Nikolay Vasilievich
• Vuchetich, Evgeny Viktorovich
• Konenkov, Sergey Timofeevich

see also

• Museum of Socialist Art
• Stalinist architecture
• Harsh style
• Worker and collective farmer

Bibliography

• Lin Jung-hua. Post-Soviet Aestheticians Rethinking Russianization and Chinization of Marxizm // Russian Language and Literature Studies. Serial No. 33. Beijing, Capital Normal University, 2011, No. 3. Р.46-53.

Notes (edit)

1. A. Barkov. Roman M. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"
2. M. Gorky. About literature. M., 1935, p. 390.
3. TSB. 1st edition, T. 52, 1947, p. 239.
4. Kazak V. Lexicon of Russian literature of the XX century = Lexikon der russischen Literatur ab 1917 /. - M .: RIK "Culture", 1996. - XVIII, 491, p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-8334-0019-8 .. - P. 400.
5. History of Russian and Soviet Art. Ed. D. V. Sarabyanova. Higher school, 1979.S. 322
6. Abram Tertz (A. Sinyavsky). What is socialist realism. 1957 year.
7. Children's encyclopedia (Soviet), vol. 11. M., "Education", 1968
8. Socialist Realism - article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Links

• A. V. Lunacharsky. "Socialist Realism" - Report at the 2nd Plenum of the Organizing Committee of the Union of Writers of the USSR on February 12, 1933. "Soviet Theater", 1933, No. 2 - 3
• Georg Lukacs. SOCIALIST REALISM TODAY
• Katherine Clarke. The role of socialist realism in Soviet culture. Analysis of the conventional Soviet novel. Fundamental plot. Stalin's myth about a big family.
• In the Brief Literary Encyclopedia of the 1960s / 70s: v. 7, M., 1972, stlb. 92-101

socialist realism, socialist realism in music, socialist realism posters, what is socialist realism

Socialist Realism Information About

“Socialist realism affirms being as an act, as creativity, the purpose of which is the continuous development of the most valuable individual abilities of man for the sake of his victory over the forces of nature, for the sake of his health and longevity, for the sake of great happiness to live on the land that he, in accordance with the continuous growth of his needs, wants treat everything as a wonderful dwelling of humanity united into one family ”(M. Gorky).

This characteristic of the method was given by M. Gorky at the I All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934. And the term "socialist realism" was suggested by the journalist and literary critic I. Gronsky in 1932. But the idea of ​​the new method belongs to A.V. Lunacharsky, revolutionary and Soviet statesman.
A completely justified question: why was there a need for a new method (and a new term), if realism already existed in art? And how did socialist realism differ from simple realism?

The need for socialist realism

A new method was needed in a country that was building a new socialist society.

P. Konchalovsky "From the Mow" (1948)
First, it was necessary to control the creative process of creative individuals, i.e. now the task of art was to promote the policy of the state - there were still enough of those art workers who sometimes took an aggressive position in relation to what was happening in the country.

P. Kotov "Worker"
Secondly, these were the years of industrialization, and the Soviet government needed art that would raise the people to "labor exploits".

M. Gorky (Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov)
Returning from emigration, M. Gorky headed the Union of Writers of the USSR, created in 1934, which included mainly Soviet writers and poets.
The method of socialist realism demanded from the artist a truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic depiction of reality should be combined with the task of ideological alteration and education in the spirit of socialism. This setting for cultural workers in the USSR was in effect until the 1980s.

The principles of socialist realism

The new method did not deny the heritage of world realistic art, but predetermined the deep connection of works of art with modern reality, the active participation of art in socialist construction. Each artist had to understand the meaning of the events taking place in the country, be able to evaluate the phenomena of social life in their development.

A. Plastov "Haymaking" (1945)
The method did not exclude Soviet romance, the need to combine the heroic and the romantic.
The state gave orders to creative people, sent them on creative business trips, organized exhibitions, stimulating the development of new art.
The basic principles of socialist realism were nationality, ideology and concreteness.

Socialist realism in literature

M. Gorky believed that the main task of socialist realism is to educate a socialist, revolutionary view of the world, corresponding to a sense of the world.

Konstantin Simonov
The most significant writers representing the method of socialist realism: Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexander Tvardovsky, Veniamin Kaverin, Anna Zegers, Vilis Latsis, Nikolai Ostrovsky, Alexander Serafimovich, Fedor Gladkov, Konstantin Simonov, Caesar Solodar, Mikhail Sholokhov, Nikolai Nosov, Alexander Fazov , Konstantin Fedin, Dmitry Furmanov, Yuriko Miyamoto, Marietta Shaginyan, Yulia Drunina, Vsevolod Kochetov, etc.

N. Nosov (Soviet children's writer, best known as the author of works about Dunno)
As we can see, the list also contains the names of writers from other countries.

Anna Zegers(1900-1983) - German writer, member of the Communist Party of Germany.

Yuriko Miyamoto(1899-1951) - Japanese writer, representative of proletarian literature, member of the Japanese Communist Party. These writers supported the socialist ideology.

Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeev (1901-1956)

Russian Soviet writer and public figure. Laureate of the Stalin Prize of the first degree (1946).
From childhood, he showed the ability to write, was distinguished by the ability to fantasize. He was fond of adventure literature.
While still studying at the Vladivostok Commercial School, he carried out orders from the underground committee of the Bolsheviks. He wrote his first story in 1922. While working on the novel "The Defeat", he decided to become a professional writer. Defeat brought fame and recognition to the young writer.

Shot from the film "Young Guard" (1947)
His most famous novel is "Young Guard" (about the Krasnodon underground organization "Young Guard" operating in the territory occupied by Nazi Germany, many of whose members were destroyed by the Nazis. In mid-February 1943, after the liberation of Donetsk Krasnodon by Soviet troops, not far from the city of mine No. 5, several dozen corpses of teenagers tortured by the Nazis who were in the "Young Guard" underground organization during the occupation were recovered.
The book was published in 1946. The writer was sharply criticized for the fact that the novel did not clearly express the "leading and guiding" role of the Communist Party, he received critical comments in the newspaper Pravda from Stalin himself. In 1951, he created the second edition of the novel, and in it he paid more attention to the leadership of the underground organization on the part of the CPSU (b).
Standing at the head of the Union of Writers of the USSR, A. Fadeev put into practice the decisions of the party and government in relation to the writers of M.M. Zoshchenko, A.A. Akhmatova, A.P. Platonov. In 1946, the well-known decree of Zhdanov was issued, virtually destroying Zoshchenko and Akhmatova as writers. Fadeev was among those who carried out this sentence. But human feelings in him were not completely killed, he tried to help the financially needy M. Zoshchenko, and also fussed about the fate of other writers who were in opposition to the authorities (B. Pasternak, N. Zabolotsky, L. Gumilev, A. Platonov). Hardly experiencing such a split, he fell into depression.
On May 13, 1956, Alexander Fadeev shot himself with a revolver at his dacha in Peredelkino. “... My life, as a writer, loses all meaning, and with great joy, as deliverance from this vile existence, where meanness, lies and slander fall upon you, I am leaving life. The last hope was at least to say this to the people who rule the state, but for the past 3 years, despite my requests, they cannot even accept me. Please bury me next to my mother "(A. A. Fadeev's dying letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU. May 13, 1956).

Socialist realism in the visual arts

Several groups emerged in the visual arts of the 1920s. The most significant was the group "Association of Artists of the Revolution".

"Association of Artists of the Revolution" (AHR)

S. Malyutin "Portrait of Furmanov" (1922). State Tretyakov Gallery
This large association of Soviet artists, graphic artists and sculptors was the most numerous, it was supported by the state. The association existed for 10 years (1922-1932) and was the forerunner of the Union of Artists of the USSR. Pavel Radimov, the last head of the Association of the Itinerants, became the head of the association. From that moment on, the Wanderers as an organization virtually ceased to exist. The AHR members rejected the avant-garde, although the 1920s were the heyday of the Russian avant-garde, which also wanted to work for the benefit of the revolution. But the paintings of these artists were not understood and accepted by society. For example, the work of K. Malevich "The Reaper".

K. Malevich "The Reaper" (1930)
This is what the artists of the Academy of Arts declared: “Our civic duty to humanity is an artistic and documentary recording of the greatest moment in history in its revolutionary impulse. We will depict the present day: the life of the Red Army, the life of workers, peasants, revolutionaries and heroes of labor ... We will give a real picture of events, and not abstract fabrications discrediting our revolution in the face of the international proletariat. "
The main task of the members of the Association was to create genre paintings based on plots from modern life, in which they developed the painting traditions of the Itinerants and "brought art closer to life."

I. Brodsky “V. I. Lenin in Smolny in 1917 "(1930)
The main activity of the Association in the 1920s was exhibitions, which were organized about 70 in the capital and other cities. These exhibitions were very popular. Depicting the present day (the life of the Red Army, workers, peasants, revolutionaries and workers), the artists of the AHR considered themselves the heirs of the Itinerants. They visited factories, factories, Red Army barracks to observe the life of their characters. It was they who became the backbone of the artists of socialist realism.

V. Favorsky
Representatives of socialist realism in painting and graphics were E. Antipova, I. Brodsky, P. Buchkin, P. Vasiliev, B. Vladimirsky, A. Gerasimov, S. Gerasimov, A. Deineka, P. Konchalovsky, D. Maevsky, S. Osipov, A. Samokhvalov, V. Favorsky and others.

Socialist realism in sculpture

The names of V. Mukhina, N. Tomsky, E. Vuchetich, S. Konenkov and others are known in the sculpture of socialist realism.

Vera Ignatievna Mukhina (1889 -1953)

M. Nesterov "Portrait of V. Mukhina" (1940)

Soviet monumental sculptor, academician of the USSR Academy of Arts, People's Artist of the USSR. Laureate of five Stalin Prizes.
Her monument "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" was installed in Paris at the 1937 World Exhibition. Since 1947, this sculpture has been the emblem of the Mosfilm film studio. The monument is made of stainless chrome-nickel steel. The height is about 25 m (the height of the pavilion-pedestal is 33 m). Total weight 185 tons.

V. Mukhina "Worker and Collective Farm Woman"
V. Mukhina is the author of many monuments, sculptures and decorative and applied items.

V. Mukhin "Monument" to P.I. Tchaikovsky "near the building of the Moscow Conservatory

V. Mukhina "Monument to Maxim Gorky" (Nizhny Novgorod)
An outstanding Soviet sculptor-monumentalist was N.V. Tomsk.

N. Tomsky "Monument to P. S. Nakhimov" (Sevastopol)
Thus, socialist realism made its worthy contribution to art.

It was a creative method used in art and literature. This method was considered the aesthetic expression of a particular concept. This concept was associated with the period of the struggle to build a socialist society.

This creative method was considered the main artistic direction in the USSR. Realism in Russia proclaimed a truthful display of reality against the background of its revolutionary development.

M. Gorky is considered the founder of the method in literature. It was he who, in 1934, at the First Congress of USSR Writers, defined socialist realism as a form that affirms being as an act and creativity, the purpose of which is to continuously develop the most valuable abilities of an individual to ensure his victory over natural forces for the sake of human longevity and health.

Realism, the philosophy of which is reflected in Soviet literature, was built in accordance with certain ideological principles. According to the concept, the cultural figure had to follow a peremptory program. Socialist realism was based on the glorification of the Soviet system, labor enthusiasm, and the revolutionary confrontation between the people and the leaders.

This creative method was prescribed to all cultural figures in every field of art. This put creativity in a rather rigid framework.

However, some artists of the USSR created original and vivid works of universal significance. Only recently was the dignity of a number of socialist realist artists recognized (Plastov, for example, who painted scenes from village life).

Literature at that time was an instrument of party ideology. The writer himself was regarded as an "engineer of human souls." With the help of his talent, he was supposed to influence the reader, be a propagandist of ideas. The main task of the writer was to educate the reader in the spirit of the Party and to support, together with him, the struggle for the building of communism. Socialist realism brought the subjective aspirations and actions of the personalities of the heroes of all works into conformity with objective historical events.

In the center of any work, only a positive hero had to be. He was an ideal communist, an example for everything. In addition, the hero was a progressive person, human doubts were alien to him.

Speaking that the people should own art, that the artistic work should be based on the feelings, demands and thoughts of the masses, Lenin specified that literature should be party literature. Lenin believed that this direction of art was an element of the general proletarian business, a detail of one great mechanism.

Gorky argued that the main task of socialist realism is to foster a revolutionary view of what is happening, corresponding to the perception of the world.

To ensure a clear adherence to the method of creating pictures, the composition of prose and poetry, etc., had to be subordinated to the exposure of capitalist crimes. Moreover, each work was supposed to praise socialism, inspiring viewers and readers to the revolutionary struggle.

The method of socialist realism covered absolutely all spheres of art: architecture and music, sculpture and painting, cinema and literature, drama. This method asserted a number of principles.

The first principle - nationality - was manifested in the fact that the heroes in the works had to be by all means descendants of the people. First of all, these are workers and peasants.

The works were supposed to contain a description of heroic deeds, revolutionary struggle, building a bright future.

Concreteness was another principle. It was expressed in the fact that reality was a process of historical development that corresponded to the doctrine of materialism.

Socialist realism is the creative method of literature and art of the 20th century, the cognitive sphere of which was limited and regulated by the task of reflecting the processes of the reorganization of the world in the light of the communist ideal and Marxist-Leninist ideology.

The goals of socialist realism

Socialist realism is the main officially (at the state level) recognized method of Soviet literature and art, the purpose of which is to capture the stages of the construction of Soviet socialist society and its "movement towards communism." During half a century of existence in all developed literatures of the world, socialist realism sought to take a leading position in the artistic life of the era, opposing its (supposedly the only true) aesthetic principles (the principle of partisanship, nationality, historical optimism, socialist humanism, internationalism) to all other ideological and artistic principles.

History of origin

The domestic theory of socialist realism originates from the "Foundations of Positive Aesthetics" (1904) by A.V. Lunacharsky, where art is guided not by existence, but by what is deserved, and creativity is equated with ideology. In 1909, Lunacharsky was one of the first to call the story "Mother" (1906-07) and the play "Enemies" (1906) by M. Gorky "serious works of a social type", "significant works, the significance of which in the development of proletarian art will someday be taken into account" (Literary decay , 1909. Book 2). The critic was the first to draw attention to the Leninist principle of partisanship as determining in the construction of socialist culture (article "Lenin" Literary Encyclopedia, 1932. Volume 6).

The term "Socialist Realism" first appeared in the editorial of the Literaturnaya Gazeta dated May 23, 1932 (by IM Gronsky). JV Stalin repeated it at a meeting with writers at Gorky's on October 26 of the same year, and from that moment the concept became widespread. In February 1933, Lunacharsky, in a report on the tasks of Soviet drama, emphasized that socialist realism "is devoted to the struggle through and through, he is a builder through and through, he is confident in the communist future of mankind, he believes in the strength of the proletariat, its party and leaders" (Lunacharsky A.V. Articles on Soviet Literature, 1958).

The difference between socialist realism and bourgeois

At the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers (1934), the originality of the method of socialist realism was substantiated by A.A. Zhdanov, N.I.Bukharin, Gorky and A.A. Fadeev. The political component of Soviet literature was emphasized by Bukharin, who pointed out that socialist realism “differs from common realism in that it inevitably puts in the center of attention the image of the construction of socialism, the struggle of the proletariat, the new man and all the polysyllabic“ connections and mediations ”of the great historical process of our time ... that distinguish socialist realism from bourgeois realism ... are closely related to the content of the material and purposefulness of the volitional order dictated by the class position of the proletariat "(First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers. Stenographic Report, 1934).

Fadeev supported the idea expressed earlier by Gorky that, in contrast to “the old realism — critical… ours, socialist, realism — is affirmative. Zhdanov's speech, his formulations: "depict reality in its revolutionary development"; “At the same time, the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic image must be combined with the task of ideological alteration and education of working people in the spirit of socialism,” formed the basis of the definition given in the Charter of the Union of Soviet Writers.

His assertion that “revolutionary romanticism should be included in literary creation as an integral part” of socialist realism was also programmatic (ibid.). On the eve of the congress, which legitimized the term, the search for its defining principles was qualified as "The Struggle for Method" - under this name in 1931 one of the collections of the Rapopists was published. In 1934, the book In Disputes About Method (with the subtitle Collection of Articles on Socialist Realism) was published. In the 1920s, there were discussions about the artistic method of proletarian literature between the theorists of Proletkult, RAPP, LEF, OPOYAZ. The pathos of the struggle "through and through" permeated the advanced theories of "living man" and "industrial" art, "learning from the classics", "social order".

Expansion of the concept of socialist realism

Sharp debates continued in the 1930s (about language, about formalism), in the 1940s and 1950s (mainly in connection with the “theory” of conflict-freeness, the problem of a typical, “positive hero”). It is characteristic that discussions on various issues of the "artistic platform" often concerned politics, were associated with the problems of aestheticization of ideology, with the justification of authoritarianism, totalitarianism in culture. For decades, there has been a debate about the relationship between romanticism and realism in socialist art. On the one hand, it was about romance as a "scientifically grounded dream of the future" (in this capacity, romance at a certain stage began to be replaced by "historical optimism"), on the other hand, attempts were made to highlight a special method or stylistic trend of "socialist romanticism" with its cognitive opportunities. This tendency (already outlined by Gorky and Lunacharsky) led to overcoming stylistic monotony and to a more voluminous interpretation of the essence of socialist realism in the 1960s.

The desire to expand the concept of socialist realism (and at the same time to "shake" the theory of method) was indicated in Russian literary criticism (under the influence of similar processes in foreign literature and criticism) at the All-Union Conference on Socialist Realism (1959): I.I. Anisimov emphasized the "great flexibility" and "breadth" inherent in the aesthetic concept of the method, which was dictated by the desire to overcome dogmatic postulates. In 1966, IM LI hosted a conference "Actual problems of socialist realism" (see the collection of the same name, 1969). The active apologetics of socialist realism by some speakers, the critical-realistic “type of creativity” by others, romantic by others, and intellectual by the fourth, testified to a clear desire to expand the framework of ideas about the literature of the socialist era.

Domestic theoretical thought was in search of a "broad formulation of the creative method" as a "historically open system" (DF Markov). The final discussion unfolded in the late 1980s. By this time, the authority of the statutory definition was finally lost (it became associated with dogmatism, incompetent leadership in the field of art, the dictate of Stalinism in literature - "custom", state, "barracks" realism). Based on the real trends in the development of Russian literature, modern critics consider it quite legitimate to speak of socialist realism as a concrete historical stage, an artistic direction in literature and art of the 1920s and 1950s. V.V. Mayakovsky, Gorky, L. Leonov, Fadeev, M.A. Sholokhov, F.V. Gladkov, V.P. Kataev, M.S. Shaginyan, N.A. Ostrovsky, V.V. Vishnevsky, N.F. Pogodin and others.

A new situation arose in the literature of the second half of the 1950s in the wake of the 20th Party Congress, which noticeably undermined the foundations of totalitarianism and authoritarianism. From the socialist canons the Russian “village prose” was “broken”, depicting peasant life not in its “revolutionary development”, but on the contrary, in conditions of social violence and deformation; literature also told the terrible truth about the war, destroying the myth of government heroism and optimism; the civil war and many episodes of Russian history appeared in a different way in literature. The longest clinging to the dogmas of socialist realism was "production prose".

An important role in the attack on the Stalinist legacy belongs to the so-called "detained" or "rehabilitated" literature in the 1980s - the works of A.P. Platonov, M.A.Bulgakov, A.L. Akhmatova, B.L. Lasternak, V. S. Grossman, A. T. Tvardovsky, A. A. Beck, B. L. Mozhaev, V. I. Belova, M. F. Shatrov, Yu. V. Trifonova, V. F. Tendryakov, Yu. .O.Dombrovsky, VT Shalamov, AI Pristavkin and others. Domestic conceptualism (Sotsart) contributed to the exposure of socialist realism.

Although socialist realism “disappeared as an official doctrine with the collapse of the State of which it was part of the ideological system,” this phenomenon remains at the center of studies that regard it “as a constituent element of Soviet civilization,” says the Parisian magazine Revue des etudes slaves. The train of thought popular in the West is an attempt to connect the origins of socialist realism with the avant-garde, as well as the desire to substantiate the coexistence of two trends in the history of Soviet literature: "totalitarian" and "revisionist".